Gene/Protein Disease Symptom Drug Enzyme Compound
Pivot Concepts:   Target Concepts:
Query: UNIPROT:P04637 (p53)
 77,613 document(s) hit in 31,850,051 MEDLINE articles (0.00 seconds)

A keratoacanthoma of the vulva in a 33-year-old woman is described. The patient presented with a rapidly growing exophytic lesion of 1 cm in diameter over the clitoris that had been present for a couple of months. An excisional biopsy was performed. Pathologic examination of the exophytic nodule showed squamous proliferation with a characteristic central keratin- filled crater. There were pushing margins. High power microscopy showed squamous cells of cytologically bland appearance with glassy cytoplasm. There were few mitotic figures. Less than 10% Ki-67-positive staining nuclei were seen. There was no p53 oncoprotein overexpression. Keratoacanthoma of the vulva is rare with only five cases having been reviewed in the English literature since 1985. Keratoacanthomas are rapidly growing crateriform lesions on the sun-exposed skin of the elderly. Because of its rarity in the vulva, the lesion can be misinterpreted as a malignant lesion such as squamous cell carcinoma. Awareness of vulvar occurrence of keratoacanthoma and its characteristic histopathologic features will help avoid misdiagnosis of a squamous cell carcinoma leading to radical surgery.
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PMID:Vulvar keratoacanthoma. 1690 63

Keratoacanthoma (KA) is difficult to histologically distinguish from squamous cell carcinoma (SCC). Therefore, although KA is a benign self-resolving skin lesion, KA is commonly treated as SCC. Biomarkers to distinguish KA and SCC would thus be desirable. In search for specific markers, paraffin-embedded tissue samples from 25 SCC and 64 KA were arranged in a tissue microarray (TMA) and stained for immunologic cell-markers CD3, CD20 and CD68 as well as for proteins considered of relevance in tumorgenesis, namely NF kappaB/p65, I kappaB-alpha, STAT3, p53, TRAP-1, pRB, phosphorylated pRb, Cyld, p21, p16(INK4), Survivin, Bcl-xL, Caspase 3, Bak, FLK-1/VEGF-r2 and Ki-67. In addition, the tumors were tested for presence of human papillomavirus by PCR. We detected that the two lesions differed significantly in expression of Bcl-xL which was present in 84% of the SCC compared with only 15% in the KA (p < 0.001). The lower expression of the antiapoptotic protein Bcl-xL in KA is consistent with a possible role of apoptosis in the regression of KA.
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PMID:The Bcl-xL inhibitor of apoptosis is preferentially expressed in cutaneous squamous cell carcinoma compared with that in keratoacanthoma. 1916 61